And boy, did they. The top brand of the year, Guitar Hero -- perhaps you've heard of it -- was responsible for $992 million in US sales in 2008. The next two brands, Mario Bros. and Rock Band, generated $761 million and $662 million, respectively.
One company is notably absent from the top brands list: "Most strikingly," the report reads, "Sony had no top 30 brands for the third year in a row." Microsoft had two brands on the list (Gears of War and Fable) and Nintendo had four (Mario Bros., Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Pokémon). See the list of brands after the break.
- Guitar Hero (Activision Blizzard) $ 992 million
- Mario Brothers (Nintendo) $ 761 million
- Rock Band (Electronic Arts) $ 662 million
- Call Of Duty (Activision Blizzard) $ 446 million
- Wii Fit (Nintendo) $ 407 million
- Grand Theft Auto (Take-Two Interactive) $ 361 million
- Madden Football (Electronic Arts) $ 312 million
- Wii Play (Nintendo) $ 261 million
- LEGO (LucasArts) $ 224 million
- Star Wars (LucasArts) $ 180 million
- Sonic (Sega) $ 163 million
- Gears Of War (Microsoft) $ 146 million
- The Sims (Electronic Arts) $ 143 million
- Tom Clancy (Ubisoft) $ 130 million
- Pokemon (Nintendo) $ 119 million
- Need For Speed (Electronic Arts) $ 106 million
- Warcraft (Activision Blizzard) $ 104 million
- WWE (THQ) $ 103 million
- Fallout (Bethesda Softworks) $ 100 million
- NCAA Football (Electronic Arts) $ 94 million
- Tiger Woods (Electronic Arts) $ 89 million
- FIFA (Electronic Arts) $ 79 million
- Imagine (Ubisoft) $ 78 million
- Final Fantasy (Square Enix) $ 78 million
- Dance Dance Revolution (Konami) $ 78 million
- Metal Gear Solid (Konami) $ 77 million
- Fable (Microsoft) $ 77 million
- NBA Live (Electronic Arts) $ 71 million
- Mortal Kombat (Midway Games) $ 70 million
- Petz (Ubisoft) $ 70 million
